Today in one sentence: The FBI is investigating the suspected hacking attempts by Iran that targeted both the Trump and the Biden-Harris campaigns; voters in Arizona and Missouri will decide in November whether to enshrine the right to an abortion in their state constitutions; Elon Musk’s “conversation” with Trump on Twitter was plagued by 42 minutes of technical difficulties; the United Auto Workers filed federal labor charges against Trump and Elon Musk for illegally threatening and intimidating workers who engage in protected labor activity, such as strikes; and Trump spent the weekend traveling from Montana to Wyoming to Colorado for campaign events on a private jet previously owned by sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

1/ The FBI is investigating the suspected hacking attempts by Iran that targeted both the Trump and the Biden-Harris campaigns. The investigation includes attempted hacks targeting three Biden-Harris campaign staffers, as well as Roger Stone, who said he’d been contacted by authorities about unauthorized use of his email account. The hackers reportedly used access to Stone’s email account to try to gain access to the account of a senior Trump campaign official. The FBI has not released any information about the hacking attempts other than to say it was investigating “a campaign cyberintrusion,” but Microsoft issued a public report last week warning that Iranian hackers had tried to break into the email account of a “high-ranking official” on a U.S. presidential campaign in June. The report prompted Trump to accuse Iran of hacking his 2024 campaign, but he never alerted the FBI due to his distrust of the agency. (Washington Post / Politico / NBC News / CNN / New York Times / NPR / Axios / The Guardian / CBS News)

  • News outlets were leaked insider material from the Trump campaign. They chose not to print it. “Their decisions stand in marked contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when a Russian hack exposed emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The website Wikileaks published a trove of these embarrassing missives, and mainstream news organizations covered them avidly.” (Associated Press)
  • Trump and his allies once cheered hacked materials. No longer, now that they say he’s a target. “Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said during a press conference in his 2016 presidential run, when Hillary Clinton’s deleted personal emails were a hot topic, “I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” That changed when Trump’s latest presidential campaign declared this weekend it had been hacked by Iran. “Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, said. (ABC News)

2/ Voters in Arizona and Missouri will decide in November whether to enshrine the right to an abortion in their state constitutions. The Arizona secretary of state’s office certified 577,971 signatures that abortion rights groups had collected – 50% more than were required to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot and the highest number of certified signatures for any ballot measure in state history. In Missouri, the secretary of state’s office certified more than 380,000 signatures – more than double the minimum 171,000 needed to qualify for the ballot. The Missouri ballot measure would create a right to abortion up until fetal viability, around the 24th week of pregnancy, except to protect the life or health of the mother. Abortion-rights measures will also go before voters in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and South Dakota this November. (Associated Press / NPR / NBC News / ABC News / New York Times / Washington Post / CNN)

3/ Elon Musk’s “conversation” with Trump on Twitter was plagued by 42 minutes of technical difficulties. When Musk and Trump finally began, about a million people appeared to be listening – far short of the “8 million concurrent listeners” Musk had claimed the platform was capable of supporting. Musk claimed without evidence that Twitter was the target of a “massive DDOS attack” that had made it impossible for the event to proceed as planned. Once the discussion got underway, Musk repeated his claim that “as this massive attack illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.” People from within the company, however, said there wasn’t a denial-of-service attack at all, but instead there was a “99 percent” chance Musk was lying. During the unstructured interview, Musk told Trump he thought his actions after the assassination attempt were “inspiring.” Trump replied that being shot at was “not pleasant” and that the ear is “a very bloody place.” The two agreed that illegal immigration is bad; that “really bad people” within the government are “more dangerous than Russia and China”; that there was “zero chance” of the Russia-Ukraine war happening if Trump was in charge; and blamed “this stupid administration” for allowing inflation to happen. Trump also reiterated his plan to “close the Department of Education” during his second term. Throughout the conversation, Trump appeared to have a lisp at times. (Mother Jones / The Verge / New York Times / Politico / Axios / NPR)

4/ The United Auto Workers filed federal labor charges against Trump and Elon Musk for illegally threatening and intimidating workers who engage in protected labor activity, such as strikes. During their conversation on Twitter, Trump told Musk: “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike. I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s okay. You’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.’” Trump was referring to when Musk fired about 50% of Twitter employees taking over the social media business in 2022. Musk, who has endorsed Trump, laughed at the comments but didn’t directly address them. Under federal law, it’s illegal to threaten to fire workers for going on strike or to actually do so. The UAW is one of the country’s largest unions and recently endorsed Kamala Harris for president. (CNBC / Axios / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)

5/ Trump spent the weekend traveling from Montana to Wyoming to Colorado for campaign events on a private jet previously owned by sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Trump chartered the jet after his “Trump Force One” experienced mechanical issues while traveling to a rally in Montana. Trump’s campaign claimed that it had “no idea” that the Gulfstream G550 jet was once owned by the deceased sex offender. The jet used by Trump, however, is not the plane known as the “Lolita Express,” which Epstein used to traffic underage girls to and from his private island. (Miami Herald / New York Times / Business Insider)

  • 📅 The WTFJHT Calendar: Now until then.

  • 🫏 Aug. 19-22: Democratic National Convention.
    ⛔️ Sept. 2: Labor Day – No WTFJHT.
    📺 Sept. 4: Fox News debate (maybe?)
    📺 Sept. 10: ABC News debate (possibly?)
    ⚖️ Sept. 18: Trump is sentenced.
    📺 Sept. 25: NBC News debate (perhaps?)
    📆 Oct. 6: Last day to register to vote in some states.
    ⛔️ Oct. 14: Indigenous Peoples’ Day – No WTFJHT.
    🗳️ Nov. 5: Presidential Election.
  • ✅ Get election ready: Register to vote, update your address, or request an absentee ballot at Vote.org, TurboVote, RocktheVote, or Votes From Abroad.org.

  • 📈 The WTFJHT Election Poll Tracking Tracker ™️

  • Harris 48% – Trump 47% (New York Times)
    Harris 46% – Trump 43% (538)
    Harris 46% – Trump 43% (Nate Silver)
    Harris 47% – Trump 45% (The Economist)
    Harris 47% – Trump 46% (RealClearPolitics)
    Harris 53% – Trump 44% (Election Betting Odds)
Three years ago today: Day 206: Moderates.
Four years ago today: Day 1302: "A major milestone."
Five years ago today: Day 936: Just in case.
Six years ago today: Day 571: Nothing but problems.